WSOP 2008
Crain Event
by Jessica on 06.30.08, 5:32 am
After a marathon day of hold ‘em yesterday, Eric “jakz101″ Crain (pictured below) played another grueling day of cards today in the $1.5K HORSE event. Eric promised Pocket Fives he was either going to end the day as the chip leader or out. Looks like it is going to be the latter. After playing virtually every hand for the last level of play, Eric got the last of his chips in the middle during a 3 way Razz hand showing Q-3-3. After 7th was dealt out, Crain showed A-2-3-4-10, but his opponent had him bested with A-5-6-7-8. Eric was in high spirits though and left with a smile on his face and informing us he will be taking a much deserved day off tomorrow.
As play was wrapping up, we spotted the following unofficial chip counts of a few players:
Michael Binger - 18K
Doug “Resilient” Smith - 13K
Alex Jacob - 12K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 9K
Bart Hansen - 7K
Allen Cunningham - 6K
Brett “Gank” Jungblut - 5K
Shannon Shorr - 4K
Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire - 1K
The other HORSE Event, the $50K World Championship, continued 3-handed play. Michael DeMichele currently maintains his chip lead with 7 million chips, but Erick Lindgren has worked his way back from the short stack and is now second in chips with 4.6 million. Scotty Nguyen is the shortest stack with 3.4 million.
Mueller Makes a Massive Call
by Crystal on 06.29.08, 8:42 pm
It seems everywhere you turn some player is making a bad call to put their tournament life at stake. This definitely wasn’t the case for Greg “FBT” Mueller (pictured at left). We caught up with the action on the flop with the board reading T
72
. A short stacked player was already all in and Greg and another player were tangled up in a side pot. Both players on the side had large stacks that were similar in size and when the other player pushed all in Greg went into the tank.
He talked out his entire thought process over a period of time that lasted nearly ten minutes. “You must have aces or kings” he said… followed by “Would you make that move with nines or eights? You could be on a flush draw.” Jon Friedberg got up from the table and whispered to a PocketFives reporter that he was sure Greg had the best hand and the other player probably had A-K or maybe the flush draw. Greg apologized to the table for taking so long to make a decision, but no one seemed upset. Eventually Greg said “I really think I have the best hand. I call.” His opponent said “Nice call” as he flipped over the 99
for a pair of nines and Greg proudly flipped over his KT
for a pair of tens. The all in player showed KQ and Greg was set to win the entire pot. The turn came with the 5 and the river was the Q which gave the short stacked all in player the main pot of around 40k, but Greg’s tens took the side pot which totaled nearly 250k.
Gerry “TheGatherer” Kane has also been accumulating chips. He busted a player with his pocket queens and then on a hand not long afterwards the cutoff raised to 9k and Gerry re-raised to 23k from the small blind. The cutoff made the call and the flop came 532. Gerry pushed all in and his opponent folded and Gerry’s stack grew to around 115k.
With 90 players remaining Jon Friedberg has around 180k, Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar has almost 100k, and Hevad “RainKhan” Khan has a little less than 50k.
The $1.5k HORSE event #51 got started at 5 pm tonight and with the smaller buy-in we’re sure we’ll see a large number of online players dipping their toes into this mixed game event even if they aren’t as experienced at all of the games. This is sure to make for some exciting action and we’ll keep you posted as the tournament progresses.
The $50k HORSE final table is still progressing. Barry Greenstein is currently the short stack with 1.3 million while Scotty Nguyen is the current chip leader with 4.4 million.
The HORSE Race Continues
by Crystal on 06.28.08, 4:21 pm
Day 4 of the $50k HORSE event is set to kick off at 3 pm this afternoon with the final 24 players. Among those looking to make the money today are Barry Greenstein (1.3 mil), and a short stacked James “mig.com” Mackey (151k) (pictured right). There are still many big names in the field such as Daniel Negreanu (1.2 mil), Doyle Brunson (777k), Scotty Nguyen (1 mil), and Phil Ivey (145k). Only the top 16 will cash in this event so the short stacks are going to have to make moves early during play today as the blinds are getting rather large. They will play through the afternoon and into the evening until the final table of 8 players is set.
Starting back up at 2 pm is day 2 of the $2k NLHE event. Eric “jakz101″ Crain returns today as the chip leader with more than 253k. Other players still in the field include David “ComptonMasta” Barter (19k), Adam “Roothlus” Levy (73k), Dan “wretchy” Martin (58k), Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (32k), and Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson (124k).
All of the 198 remaining players are guaranteed at least $3,795 while the 1st place finisher in this event will take home the gold bracelet and an impressive $770,540.
Minieri Steamrolling on Final Table Bubble
by AdamJ on 06.18.08, 3:29 am
Nearly ten feet away from about a dozen fans watching his every move, Dario Minieri’s aggressiveness had the floor staff searching for chip racks.
With chips stacked six racks high and a colony of chips left on the felt in front of him, Minieri (pictured right) has seen his chip stack go from 300k to 1.8 million in the last two rounds of the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31.
Minieri has been raising nearly every pot and his fearlessness has got him busting opponents with hands as weak as middle pair that were good.
Minieri’s aggressiveness has even made Scotty Nguyen merely an onlooker sitting to Minieri’s right. Despite not playing many hands, Nguyen’s mouth was as active as always, reporting to the players at the other table about Dario’s demolition derby.
“The young gun is taking em’ all down baby,” said Nguyen in his standard high pitch tone.
Play is down to one seven-handed table, breaking when one more opponent busts. Minieri has roughly a third of the chips in play.
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak busted out right before the consolidation when his 3-bet all-in preflop with AK was called by 88 and Rusnak failed to improve taking home 38k.
Rusnak’s stack had been on a nosedive prior to his elimination, going from 650 to 200k after he lost two preflop all-in hands with his pocket tens to pocket kings and his pocket jacks losing to Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer’s utg shove with pocket queens.
Justin “Fluffdog” Filtz (500k), Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer (320k), and Scotty Nguyen (400k) will also be battling Minieri’s stack to make the final table.
The $10K Limit Hold-em has come to an end and Rob Hollink of the Netherlands is the world champion. He defeated Jerrod Ankenman, co-author of the Mathematics of Poker, after a lengthy heads up match and will be taking home $496,931 in addition to the bracelet.
Shortly after Hollink was awarded his bracelet, John Phan was given a bracelet of his own for taking down the $3K No Limit Hold Em event. This was definitely the hot ticket tonight at the Rio as a crowd of people, including Joe Sebok and Jason “jp osu” Potter, gathered around Phan and his heads up opponent, Johnny Neckar.
The crowd reached its peak when it was announced by the tournament director that the two players had both agreed to move all-in dark on the next hand. The dealer then dealt out the flop, turn, and river and the two players took turns revealing their hole cards. This continued for a couple of hands, including one in which Phan doubled up when his 7 high was good against Neckar’s 2-4, before the two returned to a more conventional game of poker. Only a few minutes later the duo got it all in pre-flop with Phan holding A9 and Neckar holding QJ. An ace on the river sealed the deal for Phan and he was awarded the bracelet and first prize of $434,789.